Related papers: The Philosophy and Physics of Duality
For more than half a century, dualities have been at the heart of modern physics. From quantum mechanics to statistical mechanics, condensed matter physics, quantum field theory and quantum gravity, dualities have proven useful in solving…
The main aim of this paper is to make a remark about the relation between (i) dualities between theories, as `duality' is understood in physics and (ii) equivalence of theories, as `equivalence' is understood in logic and philosophy. The…
This thesis discusses various aspects of duality in quantum field theory and string theory. In the first part we consider duality in topological quantum field theories, concentrating on the Donaldson and Seiberg-Witten theories as (dual)…
Lectures presented at the 33rd Karpacz Winter School ``Duality: Strings and Fields'' briefly introducing dualities in four-dimensional quantum field theory, and summarizing results found in supersymmetric field theories. The first lecture…
A generalized view of Duality is offered as a bridge between physical sciences and the more abstract philosophical dimensions bordering on mysticism. To that end several examples of duality are first cited from from conventional physics…
The primary focus of this thesis is to investigate the mathematical and physical properties of spaces that are related by T-duality and its generalisations. In string theory, T-duality is a relationship between two a priori different string…
We discuss some aspects of the relation between dualities and gauge symmetries. Both of these ideas are of course multi-faceted, and we confine ourselves to making two points. Both points are about dualities in string theory, and both have…
In this paper we present a schema for describing dualities between physical theories (Sections 2 and 3), and illustrate it in detail with the example of bosonization: a boson-fermion duality in two-dimensional quantum field theory (Sections…
Duality, the equivalence between seemingly distinct quantum systems, is a curious property that has been known for at least three quarters of a century. In the past two decades it has played a central role in mapping out the structure of…
Fundamental duality is a concept which refers to two irreducible, heterogeneous principles which are in opposite and complementary of each other. The complementary principle in quantum mechanics is also praised by Bohr. This important…
This is the introductive paper to the volume "Symmetries in Physics: Philosophical Reflections", Cambridge University Press, 2003. We begin with a brief description of the historical roots and emergence of the concept of symmetry that is at…
This thesis is divided in two parts. The first part contains the study of some properties of the electromagnetic duality in 4 dimensions. An extended double potential formalism for linearized gravity is introduced which allows to write an…
In this essay I begin to lay out a conceptual scheme for: (i) analysing dualities as cases of theoretical equivalence; (ii) assessing when cases of theoretical equivalence are also cases of physical equivalence. The scheme is applied to…
In this paper I bring the recent philosophical literature on theoretical equivalence to bear on dualities in physics. Focusing on electromagnetic duality, which is a simple example of S-duality in string theory, I will show that the duality…
Dualities are widely used in quantum field theories and string theory to obtain correlation functions at high accuracy. Here we present examples where dual data representations are useful in supervised classification, linking machine…
Gauge theory, which is the basis of all particle physics, is itself based on a few fundamental concepts, the consequences of which are often as beautiful as they are deep. In this short lecture course I shall try to give an introduction to…
We describe the duality between different geometries which arises by considering the classical and quantum harmonic map problem. To appear in ``Essays on Mirror Manifolds II''.
I describe our understanding of physics near the planck length, in particular the great progress of the last four years in string theory. Superstring theory, and a recent extension called M theory, are leading candidates for a quantum…
** The primary topic of this dissertation is the study of the relationships between parts and wholes as described by particular physical theories, namely generalized probability theories in a quasi-classical physics framework and…
These lectures are intended as an introduction to some of the basic aspects of string solitons, duality and black holes. We begin with a discussion of the role of classical solutions in duality, then focus on string/string duality and…